Monday, February 28, 2011

Egyptian troops shooting as they advance on the Monastery of St. Bishoy

Last week, an ancient Coptic Orthodox monastery sitting in the middle of an Egyptian desert was attacked by the Egyptian army. Two unarmed monks were shot, one wounded very seriously; six unarmed young Coptic workers who had been building a wall intended to protect the monastery and its occupants from the lawlessness of the January 25 uprising also were shot, one wounded very seriously.

The Egyptian army blamed the attack on the wall: it shouldn't be there, they maintained, and to support their case against the unarmed monks and workers, they brought in a bulldozer supported by five tanks, armored vehicles, and armed troops to knock it down. As the wall fell, the troops yelled "Allahu Akbar"; as they entered the monastery grounds, Coptic monks, who had been fleeing for their lives, stood and chanted, "Kyrie eleison," an ancient Greek prayer that translates to "Lord, have mercy." Some monks were arrested, and there are reports that the injured were not permitted to be transported to a hospital. The tanks, it should be noted, were paid for by U.S. taxpayers.

Egyptian soldiers stand over rubble created by tanks and bulldozers

The monastery in question, the Monastery of St. Bishoy, stands in the Ascetics (Scetes) Desert, named for the early Christian hermits and monks who lived there in stoic self-discipline. Hundreds of years before Islam was founded, this region was home to a number of hermit saints, the most famous of whom in the West was St. Augustine, the enormously influential author of City of God. On this soil, the first Christian monasteries were founded, and, on this ground, the Holy Family rested in their flight from a Roman slaughter of innocent babies into an Egypt far more welcoming of Christ than the Egypt of today.

Coptic icon of St. Bishoy (320-417 A.D.)

It is difficult for most Westerners to imagine the monks who venerate St. Bishoy as threats. St. Bishoy, who is known to the Coptic Orthodox faithful as the Star of the Desert, was a fourth-century hermit-monk whose virtues of simplicity, wisdom, self-denial, prayerfulness, and kindness attracted a group of Christian monks who gathered around him and considered him their spiritual father. Tradition holds that Christ appeared to the gentle monk more than once as a stranger to whom Bishoy offered aid. The monks at St. Bishoy have carried on their tradition for 1650 years and, to this day, St. Bishoy's remains are preserved in a chapel at the monastery.

Attacks on the monasteries of St. Macarios of Alexandria and of Saint Paul also have been reported, as well as the demolition of a Coptic church in Tahta. There are reports of torture of priests and monks who have been arrested. A Coptic Orthodox priest recently was stabbed to death by a group of thieves reportedly overheard to be repeating "Allahu Akbar."

It is easy for some Americans to imagine that such reports are inaccurate or that some other motivation besides antagonism toward Christianity by Muslims lies behind these attacks.

When considering those possibilities, it bears keeping in mind that, although 10% of Egypt's population is Christian, 80% of the people who emigrate from Egypt are Christian. That statistic does not argue well for tolerance of Christians in mostly Muslim Egypt.

Hat tip to Atlas Shrugs and Jihad Watch, where cell-phone video of the attack on the Monastery of St. Bishoy is posted.
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Friday, February 25, 2011

Passengers aboard the Maria Dolores, a small catamaran chartered to evacuate 167 Americans and other nationalities from Tripoli, spoke of the immense suffering for the Libyans left behind.

Speaking to CNN, one unidentified American citizen on the Dolores said: 'I saw carnage.

'Helicopter gunships were shooting at them [protesters].

'The army were using heavy machine guns and automatic rifles against little children throwing rocks.'

Meanwhile, Michelle Obama made it back from her Vail, Colorado ski vacation in time to attend the White House Motown Black History gala.

Making history in the presidency is just what Michelle Obama's husband is doing. Today, Newt Gingrich observed that "President Obama overstepped his constitutional authority by ordering his administration to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act, a duly instituted law. Gingrich's idea is that, if push comes to shove, the House of Representatives should vote to stop paying the Attorney General's salary. Said Gingrich:

I believe the House Republicans next week should pass a resolution instructing the president to enforce the [Defense of Marriage] law and to obey his own constitutional oath, and they should say if he fails to do so that they will zero out [defund] the office of attorney general and take other steps as necessary until the president agrees to do his job.

Eric Holder: First U.S. Attorney General to qualify for a job retraining program.
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Thursday, February 24, 2011

For a man who just recently was exhorting America to pursue a new "Sputnik moment," President Barack Hussein Obama was conspicuously silent on today's final launch into orbit of the veteran Space Shuttle, Discovery:

A 20-year old Saudi Arabian chemistry student, Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, was picked up by the FBI when he was just one chemical purchase away from implementing his plan to hide bombs (detonated via a cell phone) inside realistic-looking baby dolls in strollers to blow up George W. Bush's Dallas home, the homes of servicemen who had served at Gitmo Abu Graib, nuclear plants and dams. Oh, yeah, and numerous targets in New York City.

Obama refused to send U.S. Navy ships to rescue Americans stuck in Libya and instead chartered a boat too small to cope with the Mediterranean sea. Result: hundreds of Americans are spending a second night aboard a passenger ferry in Tripoli, after waving goodbye to the citizens of Greece, Turkey, China, Britain, and Italy, countries that were able to get their citizens to safety.

Rebels have taken control of Libya's second-largest city, Benghazi:

How 'bout that idea of giving the Muslim world access to space technology? It kinda makes me nostalgic for the good ol' days when Lubbock, Texas made news by giving the world Buddy Holly and the Crickets singing, "That'll be the day . . ."
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Democrats originally chose the donkey for their mascot because so many Americans were calling their presidential candidate, Andrew Jackson, a "jackass." Now it's time for a change with so many Americans calling Democrat-supporting public sector unions "parasites."

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Yes, from the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. Imagine what inspirations they are to their students.

According to the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel, "On Saturday, family physician Lou Sanner, 59, of Madison, said he had given out hundreds of notes. Many of the people he spoke with seemed to be suffering from stress, he said."

This is the same Dr. Lou Sanner who was videotaped outside the Wisconsin State House defending his right to "have private consultations" with union members needing doctor excuses so that they could be paid to attend a political rally:

***

ABC affiliate WKOW-TV in Madison reported that Dr. Kathy Oriel told their reporter that the doctors realize they could get in trouble for their offer. "We think its worth the risk," she said. "Teachers have no choice."

Dr. Oriel also is an Associate Professor as well as Madison Residency Program Director:

***

The name of James H. Shropshire, MD showed up on this doctor's excuse signed at the protest rally:

James H. Shropshire is a Clinical Associate Professor:

***

For links to the identities of more MDs associated with the University of Wisconsin who managed to find the time to write doctor excuses for teachers who are "sick" of their state's governor, visit Pundit Press.

Madison Schools Superintendent Daniel Nerad, who closed his district's schools from Wednesday through Friday because so many teachers called in sick, said officials were aware of the doctors' note-signing station.

"We're reviewing how we go forward in case where those types of notes are provided," he said Sunday. "I don't know yet what the conclusion will be."

And what about the doctors who so publicly exposed their willingness to play fast-and-lose with their signatures in order to ensure that taxpayers fund a teachers union "sick-out"? Dr. Sanner is reported to have said that:

he and his colleagues planned to meet Sunday night to figure out how to deal with the firestorm they touched off. The consequences could extend to their employer, which said it was investigating the events.

It will be interesting to see what response, if any, will be issued by a medical school whose faculty are so visibly disappointing America's faith in the integrity of this country's medical profession.
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Saturday, February 19, 2011

William Jacobson has posted two videos of doctors explaining what they are doing. One of the doctors in those videos openly states that about a dozen MDs are "practicing" this kind of "medicine" at the Wisconsin demonstration. Another claims that he is protected by doctor-patient confidentiality. Those are real doctors, by the way. Name, photo, and bio links are available here.
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On January 31, District Court Judge Rodger Vinson ruled that Obamacare is unconstitutional and told the federal government to stop implementing it by stating that his ruling "is the functional equivalent of an injunction" and that he expected the executive branch to "adhere to the law as declared by the court." As of today, Judge Vinson's ruling is the law of the land unless and until he is overruled on appeal.

Obama and his Obamatons resolutely covered their eyes and stuck their fingers deeper into their ears. As reported in Investors Business Daily:

The Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services continued to implement ObamaCare and began adding 650 employees to dispense information about ObamaCare and conduct oversight of health insurance.

The Obama administration also issued hundreds of "waivers" to specially selected businesses and groups that won't have to be bound by Obamacare like the rest of America.

The IRS continued its planning to add new 1,000 new auditors and staffers plus new facilities to hold them, at an initial cost of $359 million.

Obama included $465 million in his budget to implement the unconstitutional law. .

Finally, the Obama administration is taking notice by asking Judge Vinson to tell states that they have to comply with the law that he just ruled unconstitutional:

Attorneys for the Obama administration filed what is known as a motion to clarify late Thursday, asking U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson to make clear that states cannot ignore the new health care law while his ruling is being appealed.

Why is the administration even bothering to go through the motions of pretending that they can't understand Judge Vinson's clearly worded ruling?

Annoyingly, for Obama, the group of Americans who can read plain English includes the governors of the 26 states that brought their case to Judge Vinson. These governors are responding to Judge Vinson's ruling, including Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell, who has made public his decision not to implement Obamacare. Parnell says he is concerned that doing so would violate his oath of office.

He said the Florida judge's ruling is the law of the land, as it pertains to Alaska, barring implementation of the federal law here.

Alaska has thrown down the gauntlet in support of our Constitution and our legal system. We'll see what the good judge has to say.
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They may have made it to the bus to a Rockford, Illinois resort where they stayed briefly and then checked out, but they missed the bus to fiscal sanity, along with thousands of called-in-sick Wisconsin teachers and their hapless students, who are being prepared to spend their lives as work serfs in a declining economy in which they will enjoy a lower standard of living than their teachers and possess even fewer readin', writin', and 'rithmetic skills.

It's all about a move by Wisconsin's governor to force unionized teachers to chip in to their pension plans and health care coverage. From Stilton Jarlsberg at Hope 'n Change Cartoons:

So what we have here . . . is a perfect microcosm of the difference between the way Conservatives and Liberals intend to deal with the fiscal crises which will soon cripple (if not outright destroy) our nation. The Conservatives want to address the problem honestly, and take necessary - albeit painful - steps.

The Liberals refuse to deal with the financial issues in any way whatsoever and, if the voters are against them, they'll leave their posts rather than cast a vote for fiscal responsibility. And all while Barack Hussein Obama raises the level of anger and hate, attempting to turn simple budget-balancing into class warfare and, quite possibly, violence.

The defection of the Wisconsin Democrats and the reaction of the president seem to indicate that if America's budget is ever to be balanced it won't be through the actions of bills, bookkeeping, and legislation (all of which are unacceptable to the Left)...but will instead be the result of fighting in the streets.

That's not what Conservatives want. But it seems to be what the Liberals and the president of the United States are insisting on, and are trying to provoke.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Negeen Mayel, a young Christian woman whose parents fled from Afghanistan, was arrested at the 2010 International Arab Festival in Dearborn, Michigan and then jailed, prosecuted, tried in court, and convicted. Her so-called "crime"? Videotaping a few of her Christian friends preaching the gospel and distributing copies of the Gospel of John in English and Arabic, something Arab Muslims don't tolerate, even of Arab Christians.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

During his defend-the-indefensible budget press conference, I was astonished to hear President Obama regret that he is not a caseworker who can pick up the phone and make things happen for Americans who are down on their luck. Tough luck for all of us. He is only the president of the United States and the most powerful man in the free world.

But sometimes I'm also just frustrated by the number of people out there who are struggling and, you know, you want to help every single one individually.

And I -- you know, you almost feel like you want to be a case worker and just start picking up the phone and advocating for each of these people who are working hard, trying to do right by their families . . . .

So, yeah, it -- it's frustrating.

That's really some disconnect, and I'm not talking about the President's phone service.

Apparently, Obama still has not figured out that it does no good to advocate for someone who needs help unless there is someone around with the means to help that person.

When case workers advocate for the people they are trying to help, the buck stops at the drawer in which Case Worker-in-Chief Obama keeps his "stash." The money in that "stash" is put there by none other than private sector businesses and private sector workers trying to make a few bucks despite the mountain of obstacles shoveled into their way by Obama's policies. The bucks that they don't make will not be "spread around" via tax revenue into the federal "stash" that funds the goodies that case workers dispense and the salaries that keep case workers showing up for work.

Nevertheless, in recognition of Obama's pain-feeling abilities, I bring you the following snapshots:

Obama feeling your pain during linky love

Obama feeling your pain on the court

Obama feeling your pain on a Honolulu beach

Obama and the Mrs. feeling your pain between martinis and a Broadway show

Yep, that's one empathic guy.

Instead of feeling America's pain, the president could make a few calls and do something about that pain. He could start by promoting a budget that seriously reduces the runaway debt destroying this country's economy, a debt of his own design.

That wouldn't take care of every single individual, but it sure would help.
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Monday, February 14, 2011

Harvard historian Niall Ferguson's slapdown of MSNBC'S Mika Brzezinski is making the rounds in the blogosphere today, with good reason:

In this interview, Ferguson pointed out that:

If you look at history . . . most revolutions lead not to happy-clappy democracies, but to periods of internal turmoil, often to periods of terror, and they also lead to external aggression because the simplest way to mobilize people in a relatively poor and not very well-educated country like Egypt is to point to the alleged enemy within and then, of course, the enemy abroad.

Hyphenated American, a Jewish-Russian-Chinese Cossack who got his history lesson by living through two revolutions, also is looking at Egypt through the lens of history:

[I]t requires sophistication to see that Hollywood Happy Ending is a rather rare thing in real life - particularly when you leave the civilized world and move to the rest of the planet. What are chances that the latest commotion in Egypt will end well? There were plenty of revolutions in the last few hundred years, and only very few of them had a happy ending. It is quite typical to hear of a revolution which starts as a popular uprising against the oppressive regime and ends up with a bunch of psychopaths taking over the country and building an even more oppressive regime - so oppressive indeed that the people wish they never revolted against the previous oppressive regime. Let's go through the memory lane, and take a look at a dozen of significant revolutions.

Hyphenated American argues that the American public have been conditioned by Hollywood and the entertainment industry to expect a happy ending. You will want to read his thoughts on the puzzlingly blithe willingness of many Americans to believe and even celebrate the appealing fiction that democracies can spring up naturally and bloodlessly in Islamic gardens where no democracy of any kind has ever bloomed.

That kind of unguarded optimism is very dangerous indeed for Americans who should know by now that, by virtue of their country's success, they are counted chief among "the enemies abroad" by every dictator on the planet looking to point the finger at somebody else.
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Friday, February 11, 2011

Egyptian men celebrate success of revolt against Hosni Mubarak on 2/11/11

From a poll conducted last year by the Pew Research Center come estimated percentages of adult Egyptians favoring specific changes in Egypt's civil policies and law (via Investors Business Daily). What the average Egyptian wants is not what the "feel-good" MSM would have you believe.

What Egyptians said they want:

• A much larger role in politics for Islam — 95%

• Death penalty for people who leave the Muslim faith — 84%

• Stoning of [female] adulterers — 82%

• Cutting off the hands of thieves — 77%

• Segregating women from men in the workplace— 54%

The following sympathies also will be influencing Egyptian voters:

• 82% of Egyptians dislike the U.S. — the highest unfavorable rating among the 18 Muslim nations Pew surveyed.

• 54% believe suicide bombings that kill civilians can be justified.

• Nearly half support the terrorist group Hamas.

• 30% have a favorable opinion of Hezbollah.

• 20% maintain positive views of al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden.

According to the IPD:

This empirical evidence refutes the sympathetic narrative broadcast as a continuous loop in the media over the past fortnight. Even after getting beat up by anti-American mobs, CNN's Anderson Cooper portrayed rioters as largely secular yuppies yearning for modernity and the triumph of human rights over martial law.

He and other media elite have it exactly backwards: Egyptians are revolting against Western-style democracy. The Pew poll reveals they do not, in fact, value our principles of individual freedoms, human rights and separation of religion and state.

It is plain they do not want what we want. They want an Islamic theocracy.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

At 7 a.m. CST this morning, it was colder in northeastern Oklahoma than at the South Pole.

In Bartlesville, Okla., a temperature of 28° below zero was recorded at 7:19 a.m. . . . Elsewhere in the Bartlesville area, a temperature of 29° below zero was reported around 7 a.m.

[snip]

As AccuWeather.com Meteorologist Eric Wanenchak pointed out, the temperature at the South Pole was 23° below zero at 7 a.m. CST this morning. Therefore, parts of Oklahoma and Kansas were just as cold as, if not colder than, the South Pole.

Carbon credits, anyone?

Added 2/16/11:

I couldn't figure out how to embed graphics into the comment section, so I am posting this chart of global temperatures for the last 5000 years in answer to commenter John, who takes me for an "idiot" because I am not alarmed by claims of doom by proponents of anthropogenic global warming:

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

The MSM's silence about the aiding an abetting of sexual abuse of children by Planned Parenthood is getting deafening. It's happening in New York City too.

Is there a Planned Parenthood clinic anywhere in this country where this is not happening? Every one of these Planned Parenthood "counselors" is reading from the same script. It is obvious that they attended similar training sessions.

Is there no one in government who cares about this abomination other than to provide foreign-language translation services for adolescent sex slaves? Those translators must get an earful. I wonder if their "confidential" conversations with children held in bondage are recorded for "quality check purposes"?

"Mo" Hassan claimed that he beheaded his wife because she had humiliated him. Then he decided that people were all upset with him because they are Islamophobes. Finally, he settled on a defense of being an abused husband, though his children testified in court that he frequently beat his victim, Aasiya, their stepmother.

It took Aasiya years to bring herself to file for divorce because she knew that her life, and the lives of their children, were at risk. When she finally did, it took Muzzamil Hussan less than a week to purchase two hunting knives and less than 40 seconds to stab her almost 60 times and behead her, while their children waited outside in a cold van on a freezing February night two years ago. You can read all about it in the Buffalo Evening News.

Part of Muzzamil's defense (he insisted on acting as his own defense attorney after going through a series of lawyers) was that he was courteous to the staff who sold him the knives and who gave him a cardboard box, at his request, so he could test their sharpness. Courteous = nice guy, in Muzzamil's universe.

The beheading was bad for Hussan's business, Bridges TV, a cable station that he had founded with Aasiya to eliminate stereotypes of Muslims and to show the world what Islam is really like. [Added: As Aasiaya said about her role in founding the station, "I did not want my kids growing up to watch Muslims being portrayed as terrorists." (h/t Pundette)]

After the crime, Bridges TV suspended its news programming for several months. At Bridges TV, some news is more equal than other news.

I am very fond of Indian music, so I was happy to find this lovely Tamil-language devotional song (bhajan) meditating on the Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple of Jerusalem forty days after His birth. In the Temple, a holy man named Simeon recognized the Infant as the Redeemer, blessed the Child, and prophesied that a sword would pierce His mother's soul "so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." In some traditions, candles are blessed on this day, hence the name, Candlemas.

Corn is one of the world's most important staple crops. In Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, where corn is most important, about 1 billion people get most of their energy and nutrients from corn.

Americans are also highly dependent on corn, which is eaten not only as sweet corn, corn flakes, and corn chips, but also in some form in many processed foods, including baked goods and canned goods. Corn also is a major feed for dairy and beef cattle, pigs, and chickens.

When less corn is available and corn prices rise, people who subsist primarily on corn tragically suffer serious want, and American consumers, though less dependent on corn, start tightening their belts too.

It's obvious that diverting one-third of America's corn crop to providing energy for motor vehicles is a terrible, terrible idea, but that's what we've been doing. The gasoline you put into your vehicle's tank likely contains about 10% ethanol, a kind of grain alcohol that is a very inefficient fuel compared to gasoline.

Worse, last fall the Obama's EPA raised the 10% ethanol allowable in most gasoline blends to 15% for cars manufactured after 2007, which will put even more stress on the world's food supply. It takes about 26 pounds of corn to make 1 gallon of ethanol. That's a lot of corn flakes.

Are you thinking that we will be getting our ethanol from grass sources or sugar cane? Sorry. Making ethanol from switchgrass is possible, but complicated. And Brazilian ethanol made from sugar cane is made prohibitively expensive here by a 54 cent-per-gallon tariff protecting American corn growers and ethanol distilleries. The reality is that about 98% of all American ethanol is made from corn.

Thus, the future price of corn per bushel in January 2011 is $6.51, as compared to $3.84 in January 2010 -- an increase of nearly 70%.

Imagine what an increase like that is doing to a family spending more than half their income on food in Latin America or sub-Saharan Africa, and imagine how it will continue to be reflected in the prices you pay for milk, cheese, eggs, beef, chicken, pork, cold cuts, breakfast cereal, baked goods, canned vegetables, catsup and salad dressing, snack foods, soda, etc., etc., etc. It isn't pretty.

It also isn't necessary. Ethanol is not an efficient fuel, and it isn't good for your motor vehicle. From USA Today:

"The new ethanol blends, known as E-15, come with serious risks for our engines, wildlife, water, and the air we all breathe," warns Nathanael Greene at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental activist group.

"A broad coalition of environmentalists, public health advocates, livestock ranchers, and automakers have long opposed EPA's move," he says. "Burning ethanol can cause toxic air pollutants to be emitted from vehicle tailpipes, especially at higher blend levels like E-15. The chemistry is fairly straightforward: ethanol burns hotter than gasoline, causing catalytic converters to break down faster."

All kinds of other motors that run on gasoline are at even greater risk from E-15: motorcycles, boats, law mowers, weed eaters. If it has a motor and runs on gasoline, expect the unexpected when it comes to the new higher-ethanol blend. And expect your warranty to no longer apply.

The cause of boosting ethanol use in cars has been strongly championed by Growth Energy, an ethanol trade group led by Wesley Clark, the retired Army general and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate.

Gen. Clark's group petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency last year to allow ethanol levels in gasoline blends to be as high as 15%, up from the current 10%.

[snip]

The ethanol industry has lobbied to boost the blend limit because holding the current 10 percent standard would limit the size of the U.S. ethanol industry to somewhere between 13 billion gallons and 13.5 billion gallons, depending on gasoline demand. But the industry has construction projects underway that would boost its annual capacity beyond 13.5 billion gallons in a matter of months.

The country's largest producer of ethanol and of corn is Iowa, home of the very important Iowa caucus, the first chance American voters have to show support for a presidential candidate. Candidates who do well in the Iowa caucus get a real boost, a boost that the EPA, next time around, wants to harvested by Barack Hussein Obama.

You've seen Mexican flags flying on the flagpoles of American school and carried by the hundreds through American streets while American children are denied the right to display the Stars and Stripes; American men, women, and children murdered by criminal illegal aliens who were given sanctuary by nutcase U.S. government officials; cross-border tunnels to facilitate illegal drug trade; American neighborhoods and entire communities destroyed by the influx of illegal aliens; pristine desert turned into trash heaps; American hospitals and emergency rooms by the hundreds driven into bankrupty by the cost of giving "free" medical treatment to people who entered this country illegally; known and unknown Islamic terrorists tramping into the U.S. through the porous southwest border. The list goes on and on.